Choosing celebrity endorsers for advertising campaigns in cosmopolitan China: Does their ethnicity matter?

Abstract

This study asks if endorsers function as surrogates for country-of-origin, and if the effectiveness of the tactic varies with the perceived ethnicity (Western versus Chinese) of the celebrities. It finds no significant influence on the country-oforiginperception, brand attitudes or product quality evaluations in the reactions of 797 consumers in Shanghai to magazine advertisements featuring celebrities of Chinese vs. Western ethnicity. The lack of any significant effect of the ethnicity of celebrities on a brand’s perceived country of origin precludes country image having any effect on those variables for the case of the cosmopolitan Chinese consumer.